System Shock: Enhanced Edition

Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

This page may require cleanup to meet basic quality standards. The specific problem is: Specify which aspects apply to sourceport vs wrapper version.. You can help by modifying the article. The discussion page may contain useful suggestions.

System Shock: Enhanced Edition

Developers
Original game	Looking Glass Studios
Enhanced Edition	Nightdive Studios
Publishers
	Nightdive Studios
Engines
Current	Kex Engine
Original	System Shock engine
Release dates
Windows	September 22, 2015
Taxonomy
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control, Point and select
Genres	Immersive sim, Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Cyberpunk, Horror, Sci-fi, Space
Series	System Shock

System Shock
System Shock	1994
System Shock 2	1999
System Shock: Enhanced Edition	2015
System Shock (2023)	2023
System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition	TBA
System Shock 3	TBA

Key points

Modern source port of System Shock offering features such as hardware acceleration, improved widescreen, in-game control rebinding, and more.

On 6 September 2018, a major update of the Enhanced Edition ported it to the Kex Engine, offering additional features such as higher resolutions, mouselook, rebindable keys and use of the high resolution assets from the Mac version

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

System Shock, the biggest forum about the game.

SHODANPEDIA - A wiki for the System Shock series

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
GOG.com		Includes System Shock as Classic Edition.
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam		Includes System Shock as Classic. Can be played without Steam by using the command-line argument -no-social.

Essential improvements

Skip Intro Videos

Set the value of seta g_showintromovie in kexengine.cfg to 0 (see configuration file(s) location)

Gigaquad's Enhanced log texts mod

Matches the text to match with the spoken audio.

Updated to work with the Sept 2018 source port.

VirtualMIDIsynth

Improves music playback. Windows 10 users may want to see MIDI mapper workarounds First.

High-res objects

This is version 3, which has been updated to work with the Source Port Update.

A version of this mod compatible with the game before the Source Port Update can be found here. Download only "hi-res3DSS.rar", ignoring "v2" - version 2 only adds adding parameters, useless if you don't want to mod the game.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\kexengine.cfg
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/410710/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\savegame\archive\savgam**.dat %APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\savegame\archive\currsave.dat
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/410710/pfx/

Saves made before the Source Port Update are stored in <path-to-game>\res\data\ or <path-to-game>\res\missions\archive\.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Input settings

Enable reloading and switching ammo with a single keyboard key

Few people know that System Shock has (and always had) a shortcut for both reloading and switching alternate ammo types (Alt+← Backspace and Ctrl+← Backspace). Unfortunately these keyboard shortcuts are less than convenient for modern standards. Luckily they can be changed in Enhanced Edition.

Edit controls.cfg[citation needed]

Add the following lines, preferably under the "custom profile" section: bind r cmd.ammotype default 0 bind shift+r cmd.ammotype default 0 bind tab cmd.ammotype default 1 bind shift+tab cmd.ammotype default 1 Requires R (stand) to be rebound for use by reloading. Additional binding that may be worth looking at and changing are Alt+' (throw grenade), Ctrl+' (next grenade), Alt+: (use patch), Ctrl+: (next patch) and Ctrl+A (automap).

Audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German
Russian				Fan translation, download
Spanish				Fan translation, download

Select MIDI Device

System Shock: Enhanced Edition has MIDI playback hard-coded to Device 0.

Hex edit executable to change MIDI device[citation needed]
Open DOSBox and run MIXER /LISTMIDI to get a list of your MIDI device IDs. Open sshock.exe in a hex editor such as HxD Search for the first instance of hex values 6A 00 6A 00 6A 00 6A 00. In HxD this should appear at Offset 000019C0. Edit the last digit to that of your desired MIDI device ID. Using Device 5 as an example, this would be: 6A 00 6A 00 6A 00 6A 05.

Issues fixed

System Shock won't launch

Turn off MSI afterburner

Run the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode

Game crashes with "ERROR!" after intro

Move the game installation path to somewhere that is shorter than 64 characters.

Final boss fills the screen too fast

Enable V-sync

Reactor code is no longer randomized

Replace archive.dat
Download the archive.dat file and replace the one found in \res\data. The tool reactor-rng can also be used to patch a game that is already in progress. Note: This fix can cause issues with the automap MFD on the second level. The display can become off-center and significantly zoomed out, preventing the player from using the mini-map.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D		Added in source port update.
OpenGL		Utilizes SDL 2.0 for output.
Software renderer		Edit shock.ini and set SoftRenderer to on.
Vulkan

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Mods

The 6 September 2018 source port introduced official mod support.

SYSTEM SHOCK: ReWired

The very first full fan made singleplayer campaign for the original System Shock in over 24 years!

Cortex Reaver Challenge

A challenge room that pit the player up against Cortex Reavers using a Laser Rapier; kill as many as you can before you die, there is no restoration chamber.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7	10
Processor (CPU)	1 GHz	1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1 GB
Video card (GPU)	OpenGL-Compatible Card

A 64-bit operating system is required.